The Jazz Singer - 25th Anniversary Edition (1980)

Not much jazz spoken in this 1980 version of the Jolson classic, directed by Richard Fleischer (The Vikings) and starring a very tentative Neil Diamond as a cantor's son who would rather sing commercially than in a synagogue. The soundtrack is tedious, the portrait of L.A.'s music industry preposterous, and Diamond (despite his talents as a singer-songwriter in the real world) can't help but look like a speck on the wall in the presence of Laurence Olivier, who plays his father. --Tom Keogh Amazon.com

 The Jazz Singer third version
This movie is usually trashed by everybody. I enjoyed the music, Neil Diamnond and seeing an updated version of the movie. I will agree the the title should be the Rock Singer, then again the last version of A Star is Born with Steisand and Kristofferson could use the same title. The original story of that movie was about the rise and fall of movie stars.

I grew up seeing the 1950's version of this movie and always enjoyed it. The updated version had the good sense to drop the jazz and vaudeville storyline. Period pieces don't go over well these days.
I bought the soundtrack in vinyl and loved it. At least when Jess decided he had had enough, he just left town. He didn't get hooked on drugs or booze. That in itself is worth seeing as a piece of good sensible advice. The music is a good mixture. Laurence Olivier gave his usual stellar performance. I kept thinking of hin in a NBC production of The Merchant of Venice. All in all its a good update to an old storyline.

May 3, 2008

 The Jazz Singer- 25th Anniversary Edition
Excellent Music- Lucy Arnez & Neil Diamond are great in this. Wish they both would have been in more movies. April 10, 2008

 The Jazz Singer
Great to find this. I have wanted to see this movie again since it came out and was very pleased to find a new DVD on Amazon. New condition and shipped as requested. Thank you April 9, 2008

 Jazz Singer better than ever
Even though this movie is from the 60's era, the plot, message, music, and casting are marvelous. LOVE this anniversary edition as the sound is fantastic. I can watch this movie over and over again. Highly recommend this anniversary edition! GREAT! March 22, 2008

 OY! I HEF NO FILM CAREER!
Quick, name the pop singer who made the biggest fool out of himself when he unwisely tried his hand at making movies. If you answered, "Roger Daltrey in LISTZOMANIA," "Paul Simon in ONE TRICK PONY," "Britney Spears in CROSSROADS," "Mariah Carey in GLITTER" or Madonna in ALMOST anything, then you've never seen the third version of THE JAZZ SINGER, which makes Neil Diamond the all-time champ chump.

"So vat's da rush?" asks Diamond's father, Lawrence Olivier, when Diamond cuts out of cantoring at the shul earlier than usual. But how can Diamond explain that he's unsatisfied with the five generation family tradition of being a cantor, so he's hurrying uptown to a Harlem nightclub where he performs, in black face, for an all-black audience? This being Diamond's own vanity movie, the black audience loves his music --- it's the telltale sight of his lily-white hands they don't care for. "That's a white boy!" cries an understandably outraged man. A fight breaks out, and Diamond is jailed. When Olivier bails him out, he asks his errant fortysomething son, "It's not tough enough being a Jew?" Diamond explains, "God doesn't pay so good." All this, in the film's first ten minutes!

Diamond flees to L.A. to break into show biz. There he meets record company flunky Lucie Arnez, who becomes his manager by holding a big-time agent at gunpoint until he'll listen to Diamond's demo tape. (Since she's required to deliver dialogue like, "Is schmuck a Jewish word? I just wanted to say something in Jewish to you," Arnez should have held her own agent at gunpoint to get her out of this movie.) If you've guessed that what comes next is a falling-in-love montage, you probably haven't guessed that it goes thus: walk on the beach, she converts to Judaism, THEN they get naked by the fireside.

When Olivier turns up in L.A. to tell Diamond "Come home vit me, now," Diamond replies, "I can't, Pop, I just cut my first album." When he realizes that his son's living in sin with Arnez, Olivier stops the movie cold with his line reading of four little words, "I hef no son!" In movies this bad, it's not the stars who can't act (Arnez, Diamond) that do real damage, it's the stars who can act that bring the film to its knees. THE JAZZ SINGER had been a Bad Movie twice before, but it took the participation of a full-blown hamola like Olivier to turn this dross into a Bad Movie We Love.

All ends happily, of course. By the time the requisite Neil Diamond-in-sequins concert ending rolls around, Olivier's out in the audience sitting cozily with Arnez --- he's part of the family agian, now that there's an illegitimate lovechild as his grandson. If nothing else, THE JAZZ SINGER is definitely a notch above Diamond's previous venture in moviemaking --- supplying the treacly pseudospiritual soundtrack for JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL. Oy!
March 21, 2008

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